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Racist attacks, Hinduphobia, and targeting of India as a Hindu collectivity: How the debate over H-1B visas laid bare deep-seated anti-Hindu sentiment in the US

One thing that has stood out from this anti-India discourse is a case of selective targeting of Hindus and Hindu Dharma. The American racist and Hindu-hating Christian supremacists did not extend similar criticism to other religious groups in India including Muslims and Christians, reflecting the particular animus they harbour for the polytheist and idol-worshipping Hindus.

Hindus have across the centuries faced prejudices, hatred, discrimination and persecution at the hands of Islamic barbarians and then British colonial forces. The community despite its rich culture, history and contributions to the well-being of humanity have been perpetually villainised by those who can stand the fact that while many major ancient religions and civilisations have perished, Hindu Dharma living up to its ‘Sanatan’ character has managed to brave the invasions, colonisations and subjugations and yet prevailed. In the latest episode of Hindus being hated simply for existing, the American racists and Christian supremacists are using the H1-B visa debate to express and perpetuate the berating of Hinduism and Hindus.

How the H-1B visa debate started

While the rhetoric of the American racists and Christian supremacists about India and Indian Americans have carried an undertone of disdain for the Hindu identity, the ongoing discourse which started with the debate around the supposed ‘misuse’ of H-1B visas which permits highly skilled foreign professionals to work in the United States, exposes the broader hostility harboured against the Hindu community and their natural homeland—India.  It all started after U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s announcement that Indian-American Sriram Krishnan would serve as Senior Policy Advisor for Artificial Intelligence at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Initiated by Laura Loomer, a notorious conspiracy theorist who called Krishnan’s appointment ‘disappointing’ and made an offensive generalisation that Indians as ‘third-world invaders’, the tirade against Indian immigrants snowballed into a full-fledged racial, ethnic and religiously-motivated online attack against Hindus. OpIndia’s detailed report on how Laura Loomer misrepresented Sriram Krishnan’s stance on H-1B visas including his advocacy for removing country caps on green cards, the controversies linked to the self-declared MAGA crusader can be read here.

Cow dung jibes, iconoclastic representation of Hindu Gods and normalisation of Hinduphobia in America

Back in 2019, a 22-year-old Adil Ahmad Dar, a Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorist from Kakapora in Jammu and Kashmir, rammed his explosive-laden vehicle into a bus carrying the CRPF personnel leading to the martyrdom of 40 soldiers. The Islamic terrorist had recorded a video making Gaumutra or cow piss jokes about Hindus before carrying out the suicide bombing making it clear that the Jihadis are not fighting the Indian State but the Hindus.

While the Indian Islamo-leftist ecosystem in India has been normalising the Hinduphobic ‘gaumutra’ jibes, now the American Christian supremacists masquerading as ‘America First’ activists are throwing the same cow piss, cow dung jibes against Hindus in a debate supposed to be about ‘Indian immigrants’.

A video, though from March 2024, featuring a Hindu-hating  ‘I know India very well’ charlatan Stew Peters calling Indians as “dot-headed cockroaches and parasites” has gone viral. In the video, Peters claims that Indians smear cow dung on their face and brush their teeth with cow dung and all sorts of falsehoods an average India-hating racist can spin based on reports of isolated incidents and pass it off as a pan-India phenomenon as if the Christian majority America is a Utopia or would become one by simply removing the ‘dot headed’ Hindu Indians.

One “Pascal” shared an image of Maa Kali in her fierce form with a quote from ‘Saint’ Francis Xavier reading “All the invocations of the pagans are hateful to God because all their gods are devils.”

The American Christian fanatics quoting Francis Xavier is not shocking given the two share common hate for non-Christians, particularly the polytheistic faiths they dismiss as ‘pagans’ or ‘heathens’. It must not be forgotten that Xavier had a dark legacy of orchestrating the Inquisition, the destruction of the idols of Hindu Gods and temples, and mass conversions of local Hindu populations in the Indian Subcontinent.  

Another one shared an image of Maa Kali and wrote, “America wasn’t created for people who worship demons.”

One Taylor Marshall who also believes that Yoga is ‘demonic’ shared images of Maa Kali and Lord Ganesh and wrote, “How are you a “high IQ engineer from India when these are your “gods”? You worship cringe superheroes and supervillains from an anciently scripted Marvel movie and call it a religion.”

Interestingly, back in 1911, the New York Tribune published the same image of Maa Kali with the headline “Oriental “Mystics” are gathering in Force for Invasion of America”. Back then it was ‘oriental mystics’ now it is engineers. The hatred for Hindus has only increased among the American Hindu-hating lot.

For American Christian supremacists, India is a Hindu collectivity, and it is imperative to stop the migration of Hindu pagans into America— a ‘Christian land’

One thing that has stood out from this anti-India discourse is a case of selective targeting of Hindus and Hindu Dharma. The American racist and Hindu-hating Christian supremacists did not extend similar criticism to other religious groups in India including Muslims and Christians. This selective derision of Hinduism reflects the particular animus these people have for the polytheist, idol-worshipping Hindus and has hardly anything to do with genuine policy debate on H1-B visas.

It is not merely about job competition or Indian immigrants somehow ‘occupying’ jobs that Americans should have got but about excluding Hindus due to their ethnicity and religion. The wave of anti-Hindu hate speech and derogatory content on the American side of X demonstrates how conveniently the Christian supremacists and the racist faction within the MAGA movement are venting out their deep-seated hatred for the Hindu community under the pretext of ‘America first’ rhetoric.

The American Hinduphobia

The American Christian supremacists berating India and Hindus is a fitting case of Hinduphobia which includes hate speech mocking the faith of Hindus which leads to the dehumanisation and delegitimization of Hindus like calling them ‘cow piss drinkers’, ‘cow worshippers’ etc, in addition to hate directed at India viewed as a Hindu collectivity.

As per the Hinduphobia Tracker,  the definition of Hinduphobia is “any action and/or speech, written or spoken (academic, institutional, political and/or random), violence and/or discriminatory action/attitude, which is born out of hatred, fear, prejudice, animosity, hostility and/or bias against Hindus (people following Sanatan Dharma and/or various sampradayas of Hindus and/or various Panths under the Dharmic fold), as individuals, groups of a class of people, the faith they profess (Hinduism), their cultures, traditions, forms and methods of worship, scriptures, tenets and civilizational values and beliefs. Hinduphobia can be directed towards individuals and/or their property, toward the Hindu community as a whole, Hindu institutions, Hindu religious facilities (including temples and temporary religious structures), symbols of the Hindu faith, the native and civilizational land of Hindus conceived as a Hindu collectivity owing to religious prejudice, animosity, hostility and hatred.”

Are Hindus desperately rushing to America to ‘invade’ the ‘Christian nation’?

Laura Loomer joined by several anti-Hindu ‘America for Christians’ enthusiasts has been suffering a meltdown over the imaginary attempt by Indians, a term they use interchangeably for Hindus, to exploit H1-B visas to ‘invade’ the US, occupy their jobs and lands and drive the Christian Americans out of the US. However, this is far from the truth.

As per a Pew Research Center analysis, Christians comprised 47% of the global migrant population, Muslims 29%, Hindus 5%, Buddhists 4% and Jews 1%. There are about 1 billion Hindus in the world, however, only 5% are international migrants. The behind this, as Pew researcher Stephanie Krammer says is that “Hindus are so concentrated in India and people born in India are very unlikely to leave.”

“But Hindus are less likely to leave India than they are to leave many places where they are a religious minority. Even though India is home to 94% of the world’s Hindus, it is the source of only 57% of the world’s Hindu migrants,” the Pew research published in August 2024 reads.

As Pew Research says, “Hindus are underrepresented among international migrants compared with their share of the global population (15%)”, one wonders if a community so keen on ‘invading’ the West, particularly the Christian-majority nations, how come their migration rate is so diminutive.

Now compare it with Indian Christians, who make up only about 2% of the Indian population, however, 16% who have left India are Christian. The same goes for Indian Muslims,  who are 15% of the Indian population but 33% of them now live abroad.

Overall, Hindus are far less likely to leave their homes/India and migrate to another country mainly because of cultural roots and religious affinities. Having said that, the migration to the US from India is highest among Hindus – most of them high IQ, high functioning professionals. Yet, the hate is driven towards Hindus and the Hindu collectivity based on religious hate. Probably, Hindus should either convert to Christianity and adapt themselves as per the ‘civilised’ standards of the American Christian supremacists, work like slaves, don’t build a good life for themselves in the US and be thankful to the racists for ‘tolerating’ them even as Hindu Americans have been the most peaceful and loyal community actively contributing to the growth of the United States in technology and other sectors.

Contrary to the jobs displacement narrative spread by American racists, Indian/Hindu immigrants do not generally ‘snatch away’ American jobs; instead, they contribute to the country’s economic growth, and job creation, and fill skill shortages in industries such as technology.  Indians are favoured because of their high STEM education levels, proficiency in English, work ethic, and cultural fit in corporate workplaces. H-1B visas are also in line with the needs of US industries.

Furthermore, immigrants generate jobs through entrepreneurship and consumer spending, which contributes to overall economic growth. Immigrants are also more likely than native-born Americans to start their own enterprises, which helps to create jobs. Another aspect of this “immigrants taking away American jobs” issue is that as per a 2020 Pew Research report, most Americans opine that the immigrants, both legal and illegal fill jobs the US citizens do not want.

‘Uncivilised’, ‘demon-worshippers’, ‘heathens’ and whatnot: Where does this Christian hate for Hindus come from?

All the clichés about hygiene, caste, cows and so on are being used to suggest that all such wrongs are entrenched in the Indian culture which for them is Hindu culture completely neglecting the religious and cultural diversity of India.  In the United States, Hinduphobia has been on the rise in the recent past. OpIndia has on many occasions reported how Hindu temples have come under attack, attempts have been made to weaponize caste to further target the Hindu community and how DEI programs are being used to instil hatred among American people against Brahmins.

One obvious question that comes to one’s mind is why the American Christian supremacists are targeting Hindus only in the garb of criticising Indians or Indian immigrants. Well, it is because these people deem Christianity superior and  ‘civilised’ faith while non-Christian religions as primitive, alien and demonic. This sentiment, however, outrageous and disrespectful to the other religions, particularly, to non-Abrahamic religions, has been fuelling the Christian supremacists in Europe during the ‘Age of Discovery’ to take out campaigns against the ‘uncivilised’, ‘living in the dark’ heathens and ‘civilise’ them, to the ongoing racist attacks on Hindus in the US now to oust them and restrict further incoming of the ‘Indians’ [read Hindus].

This hatred for ‘pagan polytheistic religions’ among white Christian supremacists across the world is not a new phenomenon, it rather stems from the Christian religious text and its historical interpretation by those considering themselves ‘civilised’ and ‘superior’ by virtue of being Christians and the rest as ‘heathens’. From the time Inter Caetera papal bull was issued in 1493 by Pope Alexander VI which authorised Spain and Portugal to colonise, convert and even enslave non-Christians, British colonial era to the contemporary times, the Christian supremacists look down upon non-Christians and take utmost liberty to berate the deities and traditions of polytheists including Hindus since they perceive these communities as ‘uncivilised’.

They continue to perceive the world as divided into three parts: Christians—who have heard and accepted the gospel, infidels—Muslims and Jews who although monotheistic, refused the word of the gospel, and lastly, the pagan polytheists idolators who have either ignored or have yet not been acquainted with the gospel. In fact, the modern foundations of sovereign nation-states stem from the legacy of the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), or rather this Christian peace treaty’s ‘secularised’ version. In his book India That Is Bharat,  Supreme Court lawyer J Sai Deepak argued that the modern standard of civilisation has its roots in Westphalian thought. And thus, calling a nation ‘civilised’ is actually a secularised way of calling it a ‘Christian nation’.

As noted scholar Gerrit Gong wrote in ‘The Standard of “Civilisation” in International Society’, “Paralleling the expansion of the European international system, the international society of European states-those countries which had European civilization in common-also began to extend its boundaries. Interaction with non-Christian and non-European countries underscored the international society’s need for a universally acceptable identity. Thus, in extending its domain, the international society which had earlier identified itself with Christendom and then with Europe came gradually to characterize itself as ‘civilized’.”

Since the ‘Hindu India’ despite not getting completely rid of the colonial hangover has not abandoned its Hindu religious and cultural roots to appear ‘civilised’ in the eyes of the Western Christian supremacists, they view India as an ‘uncivilised’ nation and the Hindu people as ‘demon-worshipping’ heathens and ‘third-worlders’.

The American racists and Christian supremacists are hating on the Hindu community that has been inherently peaceful and in the US, has only contributed to the country’s growth. It is amusing how conveniently the Hindu-hating lot attributes the success of Hindu Americans to the ‘liberal’ policies of the US and not to their intelligence or talent and attributes the wrongs be it India or in the US involving Hindus/Indians to their religious beliefs. There is a pattern to be noticed, in the US a debate started over H1-B visas and Indian immigrants became a hate campaign against Hindus and Hindu India, they did not attack Indian Muslims or Christians but only Hindus. In Bangladesh, a ‘student movement’ overthrows a democratically elected government and it all then comes down to persecuting Hindus. Why is it that all the issues not having any initial religious angle end up in the hating, mockery and violence against Hindus?

It is also amusing that Christian supremacists cry hoarse over Indians [read Hindus] ‘taking over’ their jobs and land and whatnot but maintain a convenient silence on US-based Christian missionaries arriving in India on tourist visas and converting Hindus, Sikhs, tribals and other communities to Christianity on the pretext of financial inducements and miraculously curing their diseases. OpIndia reported earlier how a US-based Christian conversion ‘research’ group Joshua Project has been actively involved in converting 24 lakh Indians to Christianity every year.

Conclusion

The racist and Hinduphobic rhetoric of the American Christian supremacists is evidently an extension of the same old ‘civilised’ vs ‘heathens’ and ‘superior’ vs ‘sub-humans’ mindset. The blatant demonisation of Indians/Hindus echoes the centuries-old opprobrious perception of polytheists as spiritually and culturally ‘inferior’ to Christianity which the Christian supremacists see as the sole source of spiritual and moral legitimacy. Due to the monotheistic exclusivism, Christian extremists look down upon those they ridicule as demon-worshipping-pagan-polytheists’, however, it becomes cruelly hilarious when these same people hate on Islamists using violent methods to somehow establish the supremacy of their religion.

The anti-Hindu/anti-India rhetoric raises concerns over the potential weaponization of the cultural identity of Hindus, social exclusion, and the furtherance of prejudice and hatred against Hindu Americans. It was never about immigrants, H1-B visas or American representation in jobs, this chagrin stems from highly-skilled Indians, specifically Hindus coming to the US,  achieving success and building their lives in the country without completely turning oblivious to their religious and cultural roots while average Americans struggle with deciding which of 50+ ‘genders’ they belong to or whether to hoist American or Palestinian flag.

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